stories from an amateur adventurer

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Outdoorsy Camaraderie

This is one of my favorite things about the outdoors. That special pact that we outdoorsy people all made saying that we would be friendly and courteous to each other. I know, some people seem to forget the pact very quickly. But we’re not worrying about them today.

I love that camping/paddling/hiking/running/biking/fill-in-your-sport-here gives people a common ground to immediately engage with one another. Each person seems to have a sense of “If you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” and “I know what you’re going through”.

One my run this afternoon, I approached another runner on the sidewalk. I tend to be overly cautious when I am running with Mowgli– He has been known to lunge at people, and I’ve gotten a few dirty looks for it. He is always on a leash, and he never actually reaches anyone, but still. And I totally get it. So I moved off the sidewalk onto the shoulder of the busy road we were running beside, to give this runner some space. As he passed, instead of the typical runner head nod, he thanked me for moving over. I mumbled something, because I was totally out of breath. But after I registered what he said, I wanted to stop him and say “You’re welcome! Thank you for appreciating the effort and risk that I took to get out of your way! I so appreciate that you appreciate this gesture!” But I didn’t say that, because I still couldn’t breathe, and I didn’t want to creep him out.

Moral of the blog: Be kind to your fellow adventurers. You know what they are going through.